As discussed in the about the cause section, we have the radical greenies who only care about the environment, the crazy capitalists who only care about money. Then there is another species of human being who only cares about one thing ... the gear freak.
Marriages have imploded over tent selection, expeditions have faltered over hiking boot choice, and I suspect that the mystery of Picnic at Hanging Rock could be solved if one dug a little deeper into Mrs Appleyard’s preference for her Trangia over Miss McCraw’s MSR.
Paddling
Like surf-boards, cars, motorbikes, and almost everything else, there’s no one kayak that’s perfect for everything. Variables include length, width, weight, material and hull shape, all of which determine the craft’s suitability for different conditions. At one end are long, narrow, light super-fast fiberglass kayaks. Brilliant on a good day, but you wouldn’t necessarily want to be in one 100km from the mainland in a storm, or attempting a beach landing in a 3 metre shorebreak. At the other end of the spectrum are plastic boats, shorter, usually heavier, but incredible in the surf and almost unbreakable .
For my journey I’ve chosen a Pittarak. They’re tough as nails, proven in rough conditions, and a boat that one “grows into.” They’re more of a challenge than most craft, and require more skills to pilot. At the same time, they can do things that no other boats can do, so the rewards are there.
I’ve heard great things about a number of other craft too, and received generous offers to borrow a few and experiment along the way. Variety is the spice of life, so I’ll be playing with as many kayaks as I can. Stay posted for reports.
Incidentally, I once had 2 Nordcapp’s that I built myself – one of them was used to paddle Byron to the Reef. They were both stolen from my backyard in Balgowlah. If anyone has seen them, let me know. A bit rough-built, and with incredible artwork by an indigenous artist (if it hasn’t been painted over) they are very distinctive.
Camping
There’s two types of camping on this trip. When my land crew meets me, that’s car camping. After years of lugging 30kg packs on 10 day hikes, I’m fully of the view that if you have car to carry gear – use it. The car carries super-soft camping mattresses, a 3 man tent, gas bottle and 2 burner stove. I don’t even use a sleeping bag - a big doona and nice soft sheets will do nicely thanks very much.
The crossing is a series of long paddles between islands. Its almost unheard of for the Strait to be paddle-able that many days in a row, and I’m expecting anywhere between 1 and 5 days stuck on a remote island in howling winds and massive swell. Previous expeditions have run into trouble when cold, tired, or hungry they have decided to go in poor conditions. I need to carrying 10-12 days of food, camping equipment, communication and survival gear. The kayak has very limited storage space, and every extra kilo has to be paddled 250km. Every gram of weight, and every square centimeter of space counts.
I’d like to thank Mountain Equipment for their excellent advice and assistance in helping my conversion to gearfreakdom:
- Mattress
- Thermarest ¾ length
- Sleeping Bag
- “Roman” goose down sleeping bag
- Tent
- Still looking for the right one.
- Head-torch
- Petzl Tikka
- Clothing
- Intertrek Thermals
- Lowe Alpine Fleece
- Outdoor Research gloves
- Stove
- Yet to decide (watch out for Mrs Appleyard)
- Food
- Back Country Cuisine.
- Tinderly Tucker
Navigation and Communication
I know the South Coast well enough to navigate by sight down to Bateman’s Bay. After that, I relied on charts and a compass. Legendary paddler Laurie Gagin lent me his GPS which I also used when necessary
Internet
- My regular blog updates come to you courtesy of Bigpond Wireless Broadband. The NextG network is Telstra's new mobile network, and was launched in October. BigPond Wireless Broadband is available on the Next G network to 98% of the Australian population, so I can connect to the internet wirelessly when on the trip. I’ll be giving the Next G network a thorough test-run on this trip. So far so good.
- Website
- The Website was built and is maintained by SpeakOut, an incredible organisation which offers 18 month digital media traineeships to young people heading into trouble. SpeakOut takes on live projects, including this website, and the quality of their work and service is outstanding. To support SpeakOut, go to www.speakout.com.au.
- Radio
- I ended up using my Telstra CDMA phone to recieve weather reports. it didn;t work everywhere, but I found that if I climbed to the top of any of the Islands it worked well enough to receive text messages on the weather which was all I really needed.